Snowboarding in North Korea… Enter At Your Own Risk

What do you think of when you conjure up thoughts of North Korea? Is it dictator memes, nuclear threats, dodgy haircuts and poor photoshopping skills? Me too! Well, now you can add uninterrupted boarding in an empty resort. It is hard to imagine why the North Korean Ski Resort at Masikryong (or Masik Pass) would be empty? But oddly enough you can actually go snowboarding in North Korea.

Sam Smoothy, a New Zealand pro freeride skier visited and wrote about it and it went viral and now Jamie Barrow, “the fastest snowboarder in the United Kingdom,” has now gone snowboarding in North Korea and has made one hella good vid of his travels.

In the above video, you can follow Jamie as he travels to North Korea, one of the most secretive, and some say dangerous countries, in the world, to sample their culture, food, and of course, Snowboarding.

Jamie chats with other tourists and international travellers as he gets navigated through the North Korean capital Pyongyang and finally to Masikryong, the countries only ski resort.

SNOWBOARDING IN NORTH KOREA – HOW TO DO IT

The Masikryong resort boasts a luxury hotel, ice rink, swimming pool and restaurants in addition to its nine mixed ability runs, the longest of which is over 5km! Initial projections were for 5000+ people to visit daily but they may have forgotten to take into account the poverty, dictatorship and general world desire to avoid a Stalinist regime that flaunts nuclear weapon tests against the rest of the world.

But enough Western propaganda, let’s leave that to the U.S., let’s talk about getting you to North Korea.

****DISCLAIMER: VISIT NORTH KOREA AT YOUR OWN RISK*****

The Masikryong resort, or as Trip Advisor calls it, “The Masik Pass Ski Resort” is currently at 4.5/5 out of ten reviews. Masikryong sits at 1,360m at the summit of the Taehwa peak and has 10 pistes for skiers and boarders of all levels.

Photo Credit: AFP

You have to keep pinching yourself realising where you are.-Jamie Barrow-

The best outlets we could find for making tour booking are URI TOURS, KORYO TOURS and EXPLORE NORTH KOREA. It should be noted that due to the current state of International Affairs passport holders from the USA and South Korea are not being granted Visas at this point in time.

Very rough cost for a 7-day tour from Australia – Tour: $3000AU, Airfare: $900-AU plus spending and incidentals. All tours include the opportunity to lay flowers in tribute at the statues of President Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and some of the tours through KORYO TOURS have Coast-to-Coast DPRK tours and the visit to Masikryong is an add-on. Honestly, someone the DPRK tours sound fantastic.

Photo Credit: The Washington Post

Yes – that is Kim Jong-Un riding a chairlift up on his inspection tour. What do you think? Some schnapps and shreds in DPRK? We’re IN!!